Polyurethane vascular catheter surface grafted with zwitterionic sulfobetaine monomer activated by ozone

Polyurethane (PU) is a conventional biomedical material with favorable biocompatibility and excellent mechanical properties and widely used in making vascular catheter, but its antithrombogenic property is not good enough to make it as a more demanding applicable biomaterial. Surface modification is an effective way to improve the hemocompatibility for biomaterials. The purpose of present study was to use ozonization method to modify the surface of PU vascular catheter slice to improve its antithrombogenicity by grafting N, N-dimethyl- N-methacryloxyethyl- N-(3-sulfopropyl) ammonium (DMMSA), a zwitterionic sulfobetaine monomer. PU vascular catheter (PUVC) grafted with DMMSA (PUVC-g-PDMMSA) was characterized by ATR-FTIR and XPS. ATR-FTIR and XPS investigation confirmed the graft polymerization. The blood compatibility of the grafted films was evaluated by platelet rich plasma (PRP) platelet adhesion study and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to observe the morphology of platelet using PU vascular catheter (PUVC) as the reference. No platelet adhesion was observed for the grafted PUVC slice incubated with PRP at 37 °C for 120 min. It is significant that this new zwitterionic sulfobetaine grafted PUVC have improved antithrobogenicity. It is effective that the inner surface of vascular catheter with inner diameter in only 3 mm can be grafted with PDMMSA by using ozonization method.